The MacKenzie Art Gallery has announced the design for the Transformative Landscapes public sculpture. Kâkikê / Forever by Omaskêko Ininiwak artist Duane Linklater will be installed on the façade of the gallery’s T.C. Douglas Building in Wascana Park, starting May 24, 2018. The gallery is situated within Treaty Four territory, the traditional territory of the Cree, Saulteaux, Assiniboine and Metis, and a home to the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota people.

“The MacKenzie is committed to transformative experiences of the world through art,” says Anthony Kiendl, executive director of the MacKenzie, “This monumental artwork contributes to this goal in an unprecedented way. The project represents the most ambitious and significant contribution to public art in Regina in recent memory. It is also an important addition to the oeuvre of one of Canada’s most compelling artists — Duane Linklater.

“The work functions in many ways — as a visual experience that will change throughout the day and year, as poetry written in the sky, and as a social statement. We are elated by the creation of this project.

“Special acknowledgement is due to the project’s core funders: the Government of Canada, the City of Regina, and an anonymous donor through the South Saskatchewan Community Foundation, as well as all the individuals who contributed such hard work to its realization. I thank everyone for their efforts.”

Linklater’s most significant public artwork to date, Kâkikê / Forever is a text-based, site-specific work that responds to various aspects of its location. Drawing from unattributed Indigenous words spoken during the making of treaties: “As long as the sun shines, the river flows, and the grass grows”, Kâkikê / Forever poetically reflects Canada’s conflicted past, charged present and future (post) colonial imaginary.

“What is suggested in this phrase is the passage of time, or the duration of how long these treaty agreements and relationships will last,” says Duane Linklater. “These words act as an entrance into the conceptual frameworks Indigenous people were/are using when articulating a new and potentially mutually beneficial relationship with settlers.”

Linklater is contributing a portion of his fee to a local Indigenous women’s shelter, the Wichihik Iswewak Safe House.

His design was one of three shortlisted works in a selection process for the project — a series of programs presented over the summer of 2017 for Canada’s 150th anniversary of Confederation.